Various Uses for Towels
by The Wordsmithy
Summary: In which various uses for towels are demonstrated through short, fluffy Ford/Arthur fics.
1. Shock Blankets

1. Shock Blankets

"Ford?"

"Yes, Arthur?" the Betelgeusian responded as he led his human through the cold swamps of Meladoon, a planet that was entirely unremarkable except for the fact that it had cold swamps, which are rather rare in the galaxy. They sloshed through a murky river whose knee-deep water clawed at their feet, ankles, and legs. Arthur held tighter to Ford's hand as a Rancorous Murkbeast let out an unearthly cry from far off in the trees. Arthur needn't have worried; Rancorous Murkbeasts are entirely harmless and it's only the sound they make that is at all frightening, but Arthur had no way of knowing this, and pretty much everything about this swamp was making his sanity teeter precariously.

"Could you explain to me, in clear, rational terms, if possible – why are we here again?"

"Well…" Ford searched for clear, rational terms. Unfortunately, clear, rational terms were not his metaphorical division. "We're in the cold swamps of Meladoon, and cold swamps _are_ rather rare in the galaxy." The hitchhiker dragged Arthur along with him as though trying to drag him away from the fact that he didn't know why they were there.

"But does this mean they're at all worth going to?" Arthur said. "Are you certain you're not mistaking rarity for worthiness? Ford Prefect, dragging me out into this bloody cold swamp is low, even for _you_!"

At that, Ford stopped and whirled around violently, almost hitting Arthur with his satchel (which had somehow mostly avoided getting soaked in the rancid muck they ventured through). Fortunately, before he hit Arthur, he freed his hand from the human's and pulled out a towel, draping it firmly around Arthur's shoulders.

"Arthur," said Ford. "I think you need a shock blanket."

"A what?" Arthur looked down at the towel, weirdly mystified by what was going on.

"Yes," said the alien. "Didn't you have shock blankets on Earth? When someone was in shock, you gave them a blanket?"

"Ah, yes," said Arthur. "Though those tended to be ugly orange things and this is admittedly more of an ugly stained and…whatever color it used to be…thing."

"But it works, doesn't it?"

"For your current purposes, I think it does."

Ford tried to muster up a grin. "Good." Adjusting the blanket on Arthur's shoulders once more, he took the Earthman by the hand and continued on. "Let's try to work through your shock as we try to get out of here."

Arthur nodded dumbly as his friend led him on through the swamp. The cold bit at his skin and the Rancorous Murkbeast sounded again, but he was a little less afraid of it now. He had a shock blanket. Well, it wasn't a _blanket_. It was a towel. It was a shock towel. But nevertheless, he had a shock towel, and, somehow, this genuinely made the situation okay.


	2. Drying Tears

2. Drying Tears

It had been another evening of partying and drinking for Ford Prefect. He and Zaphod had gone off together on some planet whose name Ford couldn't pronounce and didn't remember. Zaphod had been there countless times and was pretty fond of the place, which was known for its loud, exciting bars (something that generally appealed to Ford). He was supposed to have enjoyed himself, and he did, but it meant he had to leave Arthur alone on the Heart of Gold, and this bothered him. He couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he'd done something wrong any more than one can shake the nagging feeling that they've left the stove on after leaving the house or that the pet parrot they've just purchased might actually be a terrier in a very convincing disguise.

When Ford returned to the Heart of Gold (going back before Zaphod did because the aforementioned nagging feeling was getting too strong to allow him to enjoy himself), the first thing he did was go to the room he and Arthur shared. His nagging feeling led him to believe he'd find the Earthman there. As he went down the hall to their room, he heard some kind of sound coming from within it. It was curiously like laughing, which worried Ford, because Arthur was not the sort of person who laughed to himself when left alone. When Ford entered the room, however, and found Arthur curled up in the corner, his face buried in the sleeve of his bathrobe, he remembered the ironic twist of the universe that is the similarity between the sounds of laughing and crying.

Ford ran to Arthur and gently grabbed his arm, like one gently grabs a kitten that is obliviously wandering too close to a fireplace for its own good. The tears welling up around the human's eyes and trickling down his face made it quite obvious that he was not laughing.

"What's wrong?" Ford said quickly. "Arthur, are you alright?"

"Well, I'm sitting here, crying uncontrollably and trying to hide from the universe. Yes, I'm obviously quite alright. Why do you ask?"

Ford was fairly certain that Arthur was using sarcasm. Holding onto one of Arthur's hands, he asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing really," he answered. "I'm having another one of my moments, you know, where I'm suddenly reminded of the fact that I'm not on Earth and there isn't an Earth for me to be on anyway and no matter where I go or what I do, everything's entirely unfamiliar and…" His words broke up as a fresh stream of tears rolled down his cheeks; he let them fall without bothering to wipe them away.

Ford reached for his satchel and pulled out his towel. It was sort of instinctive for him; when he didn't know what to do, he always reached for his towel. There was almost always some way he could solve the problem that involved its use. Pulling Arthur forwards somewhat, he put the towel to the Earthman's face, drying his tears.

"Shh, shh," he said, these syllables being the first that he could think of. "There, there," he added, these syllables being the second that he could think of. "You'll be alright."

"No, I won't."

"Yes, you will." Ford settled into a sitting position alongside the human, still dabbing his face with the towel. "Here, use this. Dry your eyes. Please try to feel better."

Arthur sobbed loudly into the towel once more and threw it over to Ford, whose arm he grabbed and leaned into. "Thank you. I rather think I needed this."

Not entirely certain what else to do, Ford took one of Arthur's hands and patted it in what he hoped was reassurance. There were still a few wet lines on the human's face; Ford took the towel and dried them too, finishing the action by kissing Arthur firmly-but-gently on the face.

"Don't panic," he said. "Just…don't panic."

Arthur took a firmer and more complete hold on Ford's arm and pressed himself against the Betelgeusian's body like a tired person presses themself into a blanket. "Thank you for having your towel with you."

Ford looked at the tear-stained towel and smiled at Arthur. He draped the cloth over the two of them, as though they were sharing a blanket, and ruffled the human's hair as he leaned back, relaxing onto his companion's shoulder. Their arms were around each other. "Every good hitchhiker," Ford said, "should know where his towel is."


	3. Sliding Down Spontaneously-Forming Hills

3. Sliding Down Spontaneously-Forming Hills

As Ford and Arthur trudged up the damp hill, Ford kept looking back at Arthur to make sure he still had the towel. He was fairly certain the Earthman wasn't going to lose it. In fact, he wasn't sure _how_ Arthur would lose his towel. It is fairly easy to keep hold of a towel, especially when one is in no more dangerous an environment than that of the moist, soggy hills of Trallactar III, which was where they currently were. Ford just didn't like the idea of him finally entrusting his own towel to Arthur and having the human lose it in some typical act of anxious stupidity.

Arthur, on the other hand, was following along, sometimes a bit distracted by the little piles of turf that occasionally clumped together apparently of their own will. The predominant terrain of Trallactar III is some damp, porous cross between moss and dirt, and it seems to have the ability to shift and form itself into small mounds. This seems to be entirely random, and no one knows how it works. There exists a small group of scientists who are furiously attempting to solve this mystery of the universe, though the rest of the scientific community tends to think that they are wasting their time.

Neither Arthur nor Ford were particularly interested in this mystery of the universe, though Arthur was reminded of it when, bemusedly staring at a mound that started to build itself a few yards away to his right, he failed to notice and thus tripped over a mound that popped up right in front of him.

The thud of Arthur's body on the ground combined with the "oof!" that he made upon contact caused Ford to turn around and say, "Do you need help?"

"No, I've just fallen because some mound of this whatever-it-is decided to materialize in front of me while rudely distracting me by getting me to look at a mound of the same," Arthur said. "I'm quite alright."

"Was that sarcasm?"

"Yes. Yes, in fact it was." Arthur picked himself up from the ground. "You're improving."

"Good, then. Come along."

They finally reached the top of the hill, with no further distractions from pieces of the planet's surface set on interfering with their course.

"Now, you still have got the towel, yes?"

Arthur held it up triumphantly. "Yes."

"Good." Ford took it from him and laid it down on the flat expanse of hill. The two men sat down next to each other, not entirely certain as to what to do at this point. They had made it to the top of the hill; so what? Surely they had meant to _do_ something when they got there, hadn't they? Surely Ford's plan in dragging Arthur up this somewhat capricious natural incline extended past the point they had now reached, didn't it? Surely he meant for something to occur other than their acquisition of right to say, "Look, we climbed a hill on an alien planet, aren't we fantastic"?

"What now?" Arthur said.

Ford shrugged slowly and sighed. It was the sort of sigh that gives the implication of a sentence directly following it but at the same time makes no promises.

"Well," he said, leaning comfortably onto Arthur's shoulder, "we –"

And at that moment, for no identifiable reason, another mound decided to rise up, but this time, it was directly beneath the spot upon which they were sitting, and this time, it wasn't very small. It was like a miniature hill growing up beneath them. Arthur, startled, acted upon his first instinct of flailing in surprise and falling over. Ford, also startled, acted upon his first instinct of catching the falling human.

The towel was mildly useful here, as Ford, still seated upon it, slid down the new hill with the trusty hitchhiker's tool as a sort of cloth toboggan. Granted, the actual _need_ for a cloth toboggan was not entirely clear to either Ford or Arthur, and as Arthur, still in Ford's arms, looked over at the thing down which they had slid, he said, "Did we just use a towel to slide down a spontaneously-occurring hill?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Like a…like a cloth toboggan?"

"That sounds about right."

"Ah. I see."

Arthur looked from the spontaneously-formed hill to Ford. He noticed he was in the Betelgeusian's embrace, which loosened somewhat after Ford noticed that Arthur was noticing it.

"No, no, you don't need to loosen your embrace just because I've noticed it," Arthur said. "You can, in fact, tighten it, if you like."

Ford, smiling, followed Arthur's suggestion while adjusting the human's position relative to his own body. Arthur was no longer in some sort of awkward ambiguously-upright sprawl along Ford's legs. He was now being shifted to sit more definitely-upright in Ford's lap, his head resting against the man's shoulder. He wasn't entirely certain where to put his own arms, so he slipped one around Ford's waist and reached with the other for one of Ford's hands, upon which he laid his own like an invitation for hand-holding. Ford accepted it.

"Did you plan this?" said Arthur, closing his eyes and relaxing into Ford's body. "I mean, when we got here and you didn't seem to have any idea as to what we'd be doing, was this the end result you had in mind?"

"No, not really." Ford kissed the top of Arthur's head and sighed, the corners of his mouth turning up in a little half-smile. "But, you know, I suppose this will do."


End file.
